Page 21 of Troubled Blood

“You fell asleep around the time I was telling you my fascinating application of social identity theory to detective practice.”

“Which is?” he said, trying to make up in politeness now what he had lost earlier.

Robin, who knew perfectly well that this was why he had asked the question, said,

“In essence, we tend to sort each other and ourselves into groupings, and that usually leads to an overestimation of similarities between members of a group, and an underestimation of the similarities between insiders and outsiders.”

“So you’re saying all Cornishmen aren’t rugged salt-of-the-earthers and all Englishmen aren’t pompous arseholes?”

Strike unwrapped a Yorkie and put it into her hand.

“Sounds unlikely, but I’ll run it past Polworth next time we meet.”

Ignoring the strawberries, which had been Robin’s purchase, Strike opened a can of Coke and drank it while smoking and watching the sky turn bloody as they drew nearer to London.

“Dennis Creed’s still alive, you know,” said Strike, watching trees blur out of the window. “I was reading about him online this morning.”

“Where is he?” asked Robin.

“Broadmoor,” said Strike. “He went to Wakefield initially, then Belmarsh, and was transferred to Broadmoor in ’95.”

“What was the psychiatric diagnosis?”

“Controversial. Psychiatrists disagreed about whether or not he was sane at his trial. Very high IQ. In the end the jury decided he was capable of knowing what he was doing was wrong, hence prison, not hospital. But he must’ve developed symptoms since that to justify medical treatment.

“On a very small amount of reading,” Strike went on, “I can see why the lead investigator thought Margot Bamborough might have been one of Creed’s victims. Allegedly, there was a small van seen speeding dangerously in the area, around the time she should have been walking toward the Three Kings. Creed used a van,” Strike elucidated, in response to Robin’s questioning look, “in some of the other known abductions.”

The lamps along the motorway had been lit before Robin, having finished her Yorkie, quoted:

“‘She lies in a holy place.’”

Still smoking, Strike snorted.

“Typical medium bollocks.”

“You think?”

“Yes, I bloody think,” said Strike. “Very convenient, the way people can only speak in crossword clues from the afterlife. Come off it.”

“All right, calm down. I was only thinking out loud.”

“You could spin almost anywhere as ‘a holy place’ if you wanted. Clerkenwell, where she disappeared—that whole area’s got some kind of religious connection. Monks or something. Know where Dennis Creed was living in 1974?”

“Go on.”

“Paradise Park, Islington,” said Strike.

“Oh,” said Robin. “So you think the medium did know who Anna’s mother was?”

“If I was in the medium game, I’d sure as hell Google clients’ names before they showed up. But it could’ve been a fancy touch designed to sound comforting, like Anna said. Hints at a decent burial. However bad her end was, it’s purified by where her remains are. Creed admitted to scattering bone fragments in Paradise Park, by the way. Stamped them into the flower-beds.”

Although the car was still stuffy, Robin felt a small, involuntary shudder run through her.

“Fucking ghouls,” said Strike.

“Who?”

“Mediums, psychics, all those shysters… preying on people.”